SIM-08: John Sampson Papers

John Sampson, the second child of Thomas Henry (Harry) Sampson and Flora Elizabeth Sampson (née Rose), was born in Liverpool, England, on September 11, 1908. The Sampsons were an old shipping family. John Sampson's uncle, Captain John Sampson, came to New York as a Port Captain for the Houston Line of Liverpool before World War I. At the start of the war, he started a steamboat shipping line, Sampson and Durande (later Oriental Navigation Company), with a French partner. Harry Sampson came to New York to work for the company in November 1919. John Sampson, his mother, and his sister, Hilda, followed in May 1920. Although Captain John Sampson's shipping business was in lower Manhattan, Harry Sampson was captivated by Staten Island and decided to settle the family in New Dorp. John Sampson attended the New Dorp School, PS-9, and then the Great Kills School, PS-8, from which he graduated in January 1923. During this time, in 1921, he started his own newspaper, The Star. The weekly publication was a single double-sided sheet, originally handwritten, and consisted of local news, gossip, general items and editorials. Harry Sampson was diagnosed with tuberculosis shortly after John Sampson began classes at Curtis High School. As it was thought possible that John Sampson had also contracted the disease, both went for treatment in the Catskills. Sampson never returned to formal schooling, but continued to publish The Star until 1924. In August 1924, he was hired as an editor at an established weekly paper, Staten Island Leader. He also took correspondence courses in journalism around this time, as journalism schools at Columbia University and New York University rejected him because he not completed high school. In November 1925, he joined a daily paper, Staten Island Advance, which had been purchased by S.I. Newhouse in 1922. Sampson spent three years at the Staten Island Advance as an assistant city editor. He covered local news, deaths and the Staten Island waterfront. He resigned his position in order to make a trip to England in 1928, and did not to return to the paper. Sampson found his next regular position at the New York American, then the flagship of the Hearst papers. In the autumn of 1929, Sampson took over a position as a ship news reporter, a job he held until the New York American, a morning paper, folded and merged with the Journal, an afternoon paper, in 1937. His work as a ship news reporter allowed for him to meet and interview many famous people, including Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister Ramsey MacDonald and Franklin D. Roosevelt, then governor of New York. Sampson was also twice elected President of the New York Ship News Reporters Association while he worked for the New York American. There were changes in Sampson's family situation during this period. While Sampson’s uncle had been able to retire in 1920 with a sizeable fortune, his father had not been as fortunate. Shipping went into a slump in the years before the Great Depression. Harry Sampson ultimately experienced a relapse of tuberculosis and went to a sanitarium at Liberty, New York. The cost of his care exhausted the family's money by the time he died at home in 1931. After his death, John Sampson became responsible for the family, especially in the support of his mother. As a result of the merger of the New York American and the Journal, Sampson lost his position to the older ship news reporter of the Journal. Sampson stayed on for a few additional months in general assignments, and left the paper in July 1937. He then worked on an assignment basis at the New York office of the London Daily Express until October. He had hoped that this job would lead to an offer to work for the paper in London, but it did not materialize. He then worked at odd assignments for a few months, ultimately taking a position as a temporary reporter for the London Daily Mirror. Sampson started at the Daily Mirror in February 1938, and was offered a position with the paper in London in May. The notes in his journal indicate that he felt that conditions were favorable for a transfer to London in terms of his finances, his family and the political situation in Europe. Sampson took the position, and his mother and sister followed him to London within a few months. The family stayed in London until August 1939. During this time, Sampson worked for the Daily Mirror, the Daily Express, and finally for the Associated Press of Great Britain. He transferred to the Associated Press' New York office and started work there in September 1939. He worked on a special concentrating on English subscribers in both the London and New York offices. In 1943, Sampson left the Associated Press of Great Britain to return to the London Daily Mirror, remaining there until a management change in the early 1950s. After leaving the Daily Mirror, he worked as a freelance correspondent for the Kemsley Newspapers of London, which included the Sunday Times, the Sunday Chronicle, the Empire News of London and other provincial papers. While engaged in this work, Sampson was offered a position as the New York correspondent, or Chief American correspondent, at the London Daily Herald, in 1955. He continued to work in New York, but did travel for some assignments. The sales and advertising revenue of the paper went into decline, however, and the Daily Herald was revamped and re-launched as the Sun in September 1964. The image change was ultimately unsuccessful, and the paper was sold to Rupert Murdoch's News International in 1969. Murdoch wanted to keep Sampson as his American correspondent, but had already established a New York office in the Daily News building. Sampson became part of the staff at that office, but with the idea that he was looking out for the London Sun. Sampson stayed with Murdoch's newspaper organization for about three years, and ultimately retired in May 1974. After his retirement, Sampson was able to further indulge his lifelong love of travel. He remained an avid reader, a love that had inspired him to pursue a career in journalism and to collect a large personal library. He was also able to focus on a new writing career, ultimately self-publishing eight novels and a book of aphorisms and reflections. It appears from his papers that he also meant to write his memoirs, but they were never completed. Except for the periods of his life spent in England, Sampson has always resided on Staten Island. He never married, and lived in New Dorp for several decades, sharing the Steele Avenue house with his sister and her husband until her death in 1992. He was also interested in the community and was involved in the Staten Island Historical Society and the New Dorp Central Civic Association.